How Organisations Must Adapt to Social Computing

I picked this up from a tweet posted by @leebryant... a useful slidepack created by @oamprimo and worth a read:

The Adaptation of Organisations to a Knowledge Economy and the Contribution of Social Computing

PhoneBoo... It's For You...

Those of you without iPhones may have yet to discover the joy of AudioBoo - essentially they are mini-podcasts, recordable and quickly uploadable in great quality via the iPhone. Like an audio version of Twitter, these mini-recordings are ideal for observations or even mini-interviews and are increasingly being used by bloggers, journalists and regular-social-media-joes.

Now, anyone with a phone can join in using PhoneBoo. This service enables you to quickly register your phone number with the service and, if you already have an account, link it to your existing AudioBoo stream (Here's mine). From there on in recording AudioBoos is simply a case of a quick phone call and, within seconds it's live on the AudioBoo site and you've Tweeted a link to it to all of your Twitter followers.

This is me attempting to use PhoneBoo and, in this case, stuffing it up by forgetting to Press 1 after pressing the # key to put it live. Doh! (Eventually, I did get it right... audio quality not bad in the end... have a listen.)

People who follow you on AudioBoo can also pick this up via iTunes by subscribing to your stream as a podcast. Sweet. I'm already looking forward to VideoBoo on the new iPhone... it's already available for the Mac...see a useful heads-up on the Mac version from David Wilcox's Social Reporter blog from last year and actually made using Qik:

Bing arrives, Google Waves.

In the same week that Microsoft has beta-launched its own Google rival, known as 'Bing' - officially described as a 'decision engine' as opposed to a 'search engine' - Google has nudged ahead again with the announcment of two new innovative products.



Grabbing most of the column inches has been Google Wave, a new social media platform which will sit somewhere between Twitter and email as a messaging and collaboration platform. It's not available to play with yet and no-one's really sure what it is and what it will do... but they're pretty sure that it will have a major impact on the way we connect with friends, family, customers and colleagues.



Adopting a slightly lower profile, sneaking out of the back door via Google Labs but available to try right now is Google Squared. Always keen to share new ideas with the world, the Google Labs team release products relatively early on in their development in order to capture input from real-life users across the globe. Google Squared sounds a little lumpy, but comes to life when you try to use it. It is basically a tool to enable you to carry out and collate research very quickly, presented in a spreadsheet-style format, on any given subject. For example, a search on UK Banks, quickly presents you with a neat summary of all of the major players including logos, description, locations, employee numbers, revenue. Missing banks are easily added and more obscure overseas subsidiaries just as quickly removed. Hover over any cell and it will reveal the source of the data and allow you to click through for more.

Results are not perfect, several fields tend to be blank and findings can be inconsistent, but to get you mobilised at the start of a new research project it could save hours of trawling around separate stand-alone corporate websites trying to piece together the basics. It's always easier to fill in the gaps than to start from scratch.

It's not all work, work, work though. I tried searching for 'Smith's lyrics', 'UK Birds' & 'Booker Prize' all with fascinating results.

Thoughts on Avatars

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Originally uploaded by timdifford

Interesting to listen to @documentally at yesterday's DM:EX event in Manchester. He touched on loads of interesting aspects of Social Media stuff including some comments about his own striking avatar, it's pros and cons and the benefits of sticking with it.

Faces, portions of faces and something distinct in terms of colour, style etc seems key, but using it across all social media channels is also vital.

Not long ago I moved from a borrowed abstract photograph to a picture of myself. It's the one I use across most social media channels, except this blog and Facebook, where the pics are so much bigger and my avatar look so much scarier. I quite like the idea of using this pic as an avatar.

But won't be doing.

Geogiddy

The Credit Crunch has taken the Climate Crisis off the front pages. We pick up a sense of inevitability about it all, even in places like the New Scientist. For a while it looked like public opinion, awareness and sentiment might just contribute to a more organized lobby aiming to slash carbon emissions.

In the corporate world, Big Green Projects are getting axed in favour of Cost-Cutting programmes. On the one hand, I can understand why. Green and sustainability initiatives can, on the face if it, seem like luxurious nice-to-haves when stacked up against projects which will drive up revenues, save costs and minimise expenditure. However, a longer look at the business cases for those green projects often reveals that they also talk directly to the bottom line by ultimately reducing energy and wastage costs, albeit over a slightly longer timeframe. Companies facing in-year budget challenges, with landords demanding upfront rents etc, etc simply can't wait... or so they think.

This psychology is echoed globally as quick fix remedies push longer term strategies off the agenda. Climate Control becomes someone else's problem, as we read more and more about the potential fixes available through geo-engineering, including capturing CO2 and sinking it below the oceans, seeding the same seas with iron filings, and spraying the clouds to reflect the sun's rays.

These geofix strategies have some merit but carry great risks. These are risks we may need to accept as we look increasingly unlikely to get our own house in order.

[An update with links later...]

Geolocate this post.

Posted with LifeCast

All Aboard... The Social Media Express

It's been too long... since I blogged and since I caught up with the editorial team at Manchester Climate Fortnightly (@mcr_climate on Twitter). Yesterday, Common hosted the catch-up and an interesting idea-bouncing session over skinny lattés.

We ranged around flash-mobbed guerilla-gardening opportunities, setting up a Geofix Debate, through to green-trains, through to...

... The Social Media Express...

I got to musing on the Jazz Trains, Folk Trains and Blues Trains which run from Huddersfield to Sheffield and back on the Penistone Line on Mondays (#uktrain, @johnpopham's fabled Ghost Train). You buy your ticket, they have a bar on board, they have a band on board. You get on, drink, chat, listen, sing, get off, go home.

So, mashing up this idea with Manchester's Social Media Cafe, I wondered whether The Social Media Express (#smc_smx) might have... er... wheels.

Here's the basic idea. We get on a train at either Manchester Piccadilly or Victoria (a three or four carriage rattler would be ideal, plus you can join at your local station) and head off for somewhere about an hour away. In each carriage, someone pitches up to speak, just like at #smc_mcr. We also have a bar on board. People gravitate to the carriage and speaker of their choice. After the talks/discussions, people mingle and chat. At our 'destination' we stay on board and run through the talks again so people can pick up on other sessions or we run new talks, depending on supply/demand.

I think we could create a useful buzz around this for #smc_mcr as well as for creative use of public transport... Maybe one of the talks could/should be green/sustainabilty oriented.

I'm thinking aloud here... anyone think this is worth pursuing...?

Posted with LifeCast

Manchester's Social Media Cafe starts kick-starts 2009

Another Social Media Cafe under our belt and they just keep getting better. Last night's #smc_mcr at The Northern proved to be the busiest and buzziest yet, with the Unconference Barcamp format proving to be a winner.

Some great presentations and discussions on a wide range of interesting topics. I even chipped in with one on how Social Media tools can help in the project world, which seemed to stimulate quite a lot of though-provoking conversation (Thanks all!!) The group which gathered around for that session discussed whether or not Social Media tools could be described as such if they are being used in a project environment for purposes other than just social interaction... a good point and an interesting debate in its own right.

I was also fascinated by David Bird's comments about his experience in using Twitter with teams in different geographies. In my slides I was suggesting that tools like Twitter might be the glue that energises and connects productive teams regardless of timezone or location. In fact, I have begun to see this work between joint teams in the UK and India. However, David suggested that, such is the 12-by-12-hour time-difference between the teams he's brought together between the UK and Australia, the chatter tends to naturally cluster into two groups which operate at strictly opposite times of day. So rather than Twitter creating and supporting a single multi-site team, the end result looked more like two loosely-coupled units with only limited interaction. A surprisingly counter-intuitive 'us-and-them'. SM Fail?

During the conversation I also suggested that the 'always on; always available' feel of tools like Twitter might actually be adding to the stress of the work-'place'. In the same way that when people discovered that mobile phones and email meant they could contact anyone 24/7, it also meant that they themselves were contactable 24/7 by employers, clients and team-mates. Will Twitter heighten this overload? Years ago, 'presenteeism' was often described as the person who was the first in the car-park and also the last to leave being seen as the most productive. Now that many of us work in scattered locations, are people tweeting 24/7 in order to prove just how productive and available they are? Fascinating stuff!

It wouldn't be #smc_mcr if there there were no lessons to be learned. The timetable didn't necessarily let attendees sit in on all the sessions which interested them... so maybe some sort of speed-dating mechanism next time, with sessions being repeated once or twice.

As for me, I had a list of things I needed to chat to people about, specifically about how we might build a conversation about the use of Social Media in the fight against Climate Change into #smc_mcr's plans. Just didn't get chance to connect with everyone on this subject last night.

Luckily, I did manage to further some conversations about how we might make the most of the underlying passion for music which runs through the group. The freshly minted #smc_mcr spin-off group might just enable us to give this exciting area some real air-time. On that note, last night's event was soundtracked by the group's very own last.fm radio station, the eclectic nature of which only goes to demonstrate the wide-ranging inputs and influences people are injecting into #smc_mcr.

Are Social Media tools the key to unlocking truly productive multi-location projects?

Can the face-to-face demands of collaborative team-working be replaced or simply augmented by Social Media?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: onegreenerday @timdifford)

For those who couldn't make tonight's Social Media Cafe event (#smc_mcr) at The Northern in Manchester, here's a slideshare version of the presentation from my session. Without the commentary and interaction from the night it's not quite the same, so feel free to ask questions in the comments box or by following me on Twitter (@timdifford). For those who were there, these slides might be a useful aide memoire.


SlideShare Link

One Greener Year for Twitter?

I've been neglecting one of the key themes of the One Greener Day blog recently... climate change/global warming and our attempts to tackle it. Today's Independent has brought me back down with a jolt, as it suggests that geo-engineering might be our only feasible route to sensible carbon management.

As I've taken my eye off the ball and begun to immerse myself in all things social media, things haven't been getting better for the climate. Not that I really thought they would, but we DO need a mechanism for keeping this stuff 'front of mind'. Twitter could be such a mechanism... in fact I do follow a whole host of Green Twitterers, but whether they're not linking to powerful enough content or whether I've not yet gravitated to the most relevant green tweets, I don't know. I just know that it's hard for me to find headspace for interesting green themes in amongst the rich and fascinating hotch-potch of social-media which makes up my twitstream.

I'm not really a New Year's Resolution kind of guy, but if I was I would be aiming to create a service, message, application or channel which merges the power of social media with the urgency associated with the climate crisis.

Think, think, think, think.

The Unbearable Politeness of Tweeting

Another decent turnout for the Social Media Cafe (#smc_mcr) at the The Northern last night and a tip'o'the hat to those involved in organising the event.

It's encouraging that such events can actually be arranged so quickly and, in that sense, social media is working very nicely thank-you.

Since the first #smc_mcr, the group's wiki has a more lived-in feel with plenty of people putting their names forward to both speak and attend the events (although, oddly, not last night's speaker). The group has even spawned it's own sub-group on last.fm which takes the concept of the 'silent disco' one step further in that you don't even have to turn up. You can observe what other smc_mcr's are listening to from the comfort of your own garrett. Encouragingly, Boards of Canada are at the thick end of the group's dinky Long Tail after just one week, proving that those that have signed up on last.fm are a right-thinking bunch.

Anyway, at the inaugural #smc_mcr last month I tweeted, during the proceedings, that it might be a good idea to have a screen or a ticker showing what people were tweeting about during the presentations. Within minutes that idea took shape and well done to Julian at Littlestar for organising two big screens for last nights event. However, and I shall be the first to admit this, the idea was fundamentally flawed. In putting Twitter on the 'big screen' we inadvertently turned the back-channel into a highly visible front-channel. Frozen in the glare of the throbbing plasma, the great and good lost all control of their critical faculties and struggled to muster any decent comment/challenge re the 'speaker' of the evening.

I say 'speaker', because that generally creates an impression in the reader that someone with presentation skills is being described. Sadly that wasn't the case last night. Heather Corcoran from FACT, lovely lady though I'm sure she is, turned up with an online connection to some pleasant enough non-controversial arty bobbins obviously thinking, 'that'll do'. It wasn't enough really as she mumbled through link after link of fractionally-diverting, grant-attracting shenanigans. However, to her credit and with Paul Dirac-like aplomb, Heather inadvertantly created Anti-Twitter, as the assembled crowd, reserved and British to the last, refused to comment or acknowledge this faux-pas ridden 'elephant in the room' on the back-channel.

Itchy fingers hovered tentatively over iPhone touchscreens as the North West Twitterati tried to psyche themselves up to saying what they really felt. Those who did tweet, favoured safer topics such as 'are geek's sexy?' and 'will these links be on the wiki?', the rest stayed stock still formulating their next drinks order or putting off that nagging visit to the loo. One person at the back held on so long, they needed to be held over a grid.

Never mind. Lots learnt and we move on. It was a great opportunity, before and after, to put faces to avatars and I wasn't the only one enjoying some interesting and fun conversation. I'm looking forward to the next #smc_mcr as it continues to evolve and must remphasise the point made by those who organised the first two events, that we're all part of this thing and can play a part in shaping and organising these events. Any criticism in this post should be taken in this spirit as I'm as keen as everyone else for #smc_mcr to go from strength to strength and to guard against it becoming 'the scene that celebrates itself'. I'm happy to play a part.